(Nov 6, 2012) After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern Europe quickly fractured into a jigsaw puzzle of nation-states.

The European Union and NATO not only rushed to recognize the independence of nations like Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and others but began the process to absorb them into the EU and NATO.

However, the tide of separatism and fragmentation may soon be brought home to a financially-collapsing Western Europe as the advent of an independent Scotland, Catalonia, and Flanders, born from the decaying carcasses of Western European nation-states, becomes a distinct possibility.

NATO has had to take a bit of a breather in its plans to move to the Caucasus and beyond to take stock of how it is going to keep an independent Scotland and Flanders in the NATO fold.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has long been known for its anti-NATO and anti-Trident nuclear submarine stance.

The British Royal Navy maintains a Trident base in Scotland and the US Navy once based its Polaris and Poseidon nuclear submarines at Holy Loch, Scotland.